Hmm. I found myself wondering near the beginning what sorts of jobs the h was applying for. Supposedly she was working on her graduate studies in reproductive biology when she found herself widowed and having to drop out. I would think at the state of desperation she seemed to be, she'd look at waitressing jobs at diners or something. Instead, she's living out of her car, with a 9 year old daughter, and broke.

Then there's the motel - what sort can you get where you could stay in for $30-40 bucks? Granted, this book was written in 1990.

So she contacts her late husband's grandmother, and ends up in Louisiana where she finds herself pursued by one cousin, falling for another... and supposedly that one is a homicidal maniac...

Except that the homicidal maniac isn't, and the dullard lawyer cousin...is mentally disturbed and nobody knows. Weird. Because usually there's some sign somewhere...

Of course everyone figures all this out at the end when mild mannered lawyer tries to kill her - after calling the police - to set up a scene so his cousin will be incarcerated or executed. Grandmere asks him why he tried to kill his cousin...and he confesses to it all.

Heroine - justifiably anxious to escape. Too bad the mild mannered lawyer's grabbiness didn't make her wary of him. She continued being wary of the wrong one.

Hero - well, I guess being locked in the attic - sortof - beats being executed. Fortunately, his cousin's confession exonerated him, otherwise there would be no romance.

I read this years ago, long before my vow to write something about every book I read; likely just after joining GoodReads back in the halcyon days when the site was actually fun, but I was still too nervous to write anything. I loved it, as is evident by the 5 star rating I gave it back then (and I'm keeping for posterity's sake). Sunday I was feeling slumpy and needed something easy, and since I've always wanted to go back and write something about all the early books, a re-read of this accomplished two goals.

3 sisters with powerful magic, hiding from the Aunt that killed their parents while stealing their powers. A fabulously evil Aunt determined to get the sisters to surrender their powers to her, who attempts to bribe them all by sending them their soul mates; or in one case, a reasonable facsimile thereof. A showdown in a small town whose residents are obviously deaf, dumb and blind in the extreme. Heaps of humor, sass, girl power and HEA's. An absolutely awesome, awesome cat name Pywackt.

I didn't expect it to stand up very well over time. I love a few of Crusie's non-paranormal titles to death, but she's not a consistent writer, her paranormal stuff tends to be over the top, and I remembered this being more romance than chick-lit (fine line, I know). But it did stand up rather well. It's not one of Crusie's best by a long shot - although it's really one 1/3 hers anyway, as she co-wrote it with 2 other authors: Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, neither of whom I know anything about - but it's fun without being flaky or formulaic. The humor stands up, and there are a few sex scenes which I'd forgotten about that are far steamier than Crusie's other works (making me think that perhaps those scenes represent some of Dreyer and Stuart's contributions).

All in all still a great read when you're in the mood for a literary rom-com.

I think calling this a romance is a stretch, Harlequin stamp notwithstanding.

The heroine has amnesia. And she's not liking what she sees, either in herself, or in others. Even better, someone is out to get her, and her husband doesn't believe her.

The hero's reason for marrying the heroine seems to be a business arrangement gone awry. Basically, his dad left him the property, and her the money.

Problems arose when a married chick he'd been screwing around with (makes face) and his/the heroine's distant aunt plant all sorts of seeds of doubt in the heroine's mind while she's getting ready for the wedding. And then problems start. The heroine runs in fear for her life.

She awakens in a hospital with no memory of what happened, but she was found in a car with a dead man, and a lot of cash. The dead man, as it turns out, was her father, and he was strangled.

4 stars for being well-written and an easy read. -.5 for the H being too busy being a dick to notice they were being followed...and he's apparently head of security?!

So the h and her late father have spent much of their lives keeping her mom and twin sister out of trouble/cleaning up after them. Father is gone now and the job falls on h. Her mother has "decided" she's dying and persuades h to take off to a small country that just happens to be in the middle of a revolution of sorts (uh...geez.)

H and sister's lover decide to keep h busy by going on a wild goose chase and making her miserable. H of course is chauffeuring her around...and somehow manages to a)miss being followed by an assassin he'd gotten the best of twice and b)not check his wheels for a tracking device. He hears that the guy is after his friend (sister's lover) so makes a beeline to warn him - without making *any* effort to see if he's being followed.

H/h manage to strand themselves on a bad road during a rain storm and they just...stick to the road (you'd think he'd have at least some survival training). They stop for the night in an abandoned house where they're too busy to notice assassin helping himself to the H's guns (!)

Of course, bad guy does get his just desserts, h's sister gets married (and gives birth shortly afterward, H apologizes for being an ass...and h's sister informs her that supposedly dying mom is in Vegas with a male friend.

I ponder a lot, about these characters who stay in small towns where they're miserable. I really ponder why this town continues to exist. Seems like such a tragedy in a town that barely qualifies for a truck stop (with no gas station...where do people gas up?). the kindest thing would be for the whole town to die. And of course, I wonder why something like what happened would keep being rehashed.

So basically, the past is that the H's father, a Korean war vet, had...issues...from his time there. And the H's mother, freaked out by him, left with the H, then a 2 year old. 15 years later, he snapped during the 4th of July, and shot a bunch of people. It is implied that prior to this, a bunch of animals in the area turned up dead, at his hand. The h was the lone survivor among the victims - she was shot in the knee.

The H has spent the last 15 years having people look at him suspiciously due to who his father was. I kinda puzzled at that. His almost-step-father insists that he go back to his parents' home town and well, figure things out.

The h has become, whether she wanted to or not, the town martyr. She wants out. The town judge took her in by marrying her (he's dead now), and well, everyone takes care of her...until she sleeps with the H, then they turn on her like rabid dogs. (see "why do people remain in small towns when they're miserable?"). He stays away for a bit and they sort of forgive her, deciding she's been victimized again (well, yeah - by them).

In the meantime, someone is planning on recreating the tragedy. The H's reappearance is v. convenient as everyone suspects him. The person makes their move against the h, the H for whatever reason goes back and gets her untied, then they go and avert disaster.

As stated earlier, I don't get why the h had stayed there. I don't get why she let herself get railroaded into a marriage (no relatives apparently). I don't get a lot of things about this set up really.

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